Mullen has lost his mind.

[AzzurriDawg4]

Regarding the play of Broomfield/Banks/Langston:

"When you're starting to play with a bunch of young guys and a lot of inexperienced guys, you have the potential to see big improvement, not just small improvement from week to week," Mullen said. "I think we've seen some of those jumps of those guys making plays and playing with some confidence back there. There's still a lot of growing and developing to do."

WAIT! I thought youth was nothing but a recipe for disaster? What say you Stansbury? What say you Crooms? What say you Polk? 17! We are too young! Whatever are we to do?

We are going to improve exponentially and kick people's 17ing asses, that is what we are going to do...Mullen say.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

Regarding the play of Broomfield/Banks/Langston:

"When you're starting to play with a bunch of young guys and a lot of inexperienced guys, you have the potential to see big improvement, not just small improvement from week to week," Mullen said. "I think we've seen some of those jumps of those guys making plays and playing with some confidence back there. There's still a lot of growing and developing to do."

WAIT! I thought youth was nothing but a recipe for disaster? What say you Stansbury? What say you Crooms? What say you Polk? 17! We are too young! Whatever are we to do?

We are going to improve exponentially and kick people's 17ing asses, that is what we are going to do...Mullen say.

 

[stateskills]

A 3-5 record after 8 games for our basketball or baseball programs would be a disaster.

 

[8dog]

that's a pretty broad rebuttal.

We've inserted freshmens in the secondary for more experienced players and its worked out pretty well.

And Chad Bumphis ain't bad either.

The point is, play the young guys if they give you a better chance to win, and these guys do.

See Dee Bost

 

[birdZdawg]

[No message]

 

[VegasDawg13]

The point is, play the young guys if they give you a better chance to win, and these guys do.

See Dee Bost

Doesn't that prove that Stansbury is willing to do that? Bost was starting from the get-go last year, and so did Jamont Gordon. Using the success of the freshmen on the football team to bash Stansbury is laughable.

 

[stateskills]

The freshmen have certainly improved during the season for the football team, but to call out Stansbury for not playing young talent when he has more experienced players that give the team a better chance to win games is stupid.

You can't throw away 3/4 of the season in basketball letting young players get on the job training when your goal every year is making the NCAA tournament and winning conference championships.

Mullen is right that young talented players improve exponentially with real/quality PT. But, at what expense? In football in the year 2009, we don't have a choice. In baseball and basketball we typically do.

 

[jcdawgman18]

what the original post was trying to say. Too many seeming sarcasms mixed in with actual claims.

 

[8dog]

but I do think Stans is way too hesitant to play freshmen. Bost started from day 1 by default.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

The point is Mullen is not making excuses. He is not crying about how young we are. He is not being negative about it. On the contrary, he points out (implicitly) that if you leave the same old ****** veterans out there, those that have a defined ceiling, you aren't going to go anywhere, but by putting the young guys back there you have a chance at rapid improvement. I just think it is a refreshing thought and was pointing that out.

What he is doing is putting our best players on the field and guess what, it is working. Does it mean a winning season? Probably not, but it does mean that we are putting our best team on the field.

We all know that Stansbury has been bad about that, at least early in the season - and he incessantly bitches about youth and being inexperienced when he has a pancake pre-conference schedule during which they can gain experience. Croom just didn't have a clue, but he still complained about players. Unfortunately, Polk II's teams were young and ******.

 

[8dog]

that this season is a disaster and your comparing it to basketball.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

for Mullen than indictment of the other coaches.

Well, 17 Croom. But the rest have their moments.

 

[VegasDawg13]

I could've put my post elsewhere.

"Bost started from day 1 by default. "

That could be said about the freshmen playing football right now too.

 

[VegasDawg13]

You aren't the first person I've seen say this. One of my favorite things about Stansbury is that he doesn't make excuses. It was especially apparent when our coaches in the other two sports did nothing but. Now that we have two new coaches, we have to color Stansbury as making excuses?

I concede that he is a little too hesitant to play freshmen. Although, it's pretty rare that we have **** returning in basketball, and when we have, he's played freshmen plenty.

 

[stateskills]

I agree with this.

Croom just didn't have a clue, but he still complained about players. Unfortunately, Polk II's teams were young and ******.

Only problem is, you can't lump Stansbury in with those two clowns. When freshmens show up on campus ready to play in Stansbury's program, they play (see Bost). When they don't, they sit on the bench. "Everybody" then gets their panties in a wad because Stansbury isn't playing some highly recruited freshmens - well, those freshmens aren't giving the team a better chance to win that day. Stansbury isn't in a situation where he needs to lose games waiting on freshmens to get better, they have to do it in practice, and that's a good situation to be in.

I also agree that Mullen's attitude is a breath of fresh air, however he's in a situation where he's trying to build a program from nothing. However, if Stansbury trotted out a bunch of freshmens, lost over half of his games, and then talked about how much they were improving, we'd burn his house down.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

this might be the first season I can remember in a long time that I didn't hear him qualifying his expectations on the year with the statement that "we're young."

That may be true, but so is every other decent basketball team in the country. As to Stans and college basketball in general, I don't think youth can ever be an excuse. Not when you have 18 year olds that can earn significant playing time in the NBA. If you have seniors in college basketball, you are either terrible, have gotten incredibly lucky (see us keeping Varnado) or you are good because you have some players that are kick *** college players but not good enough to be pros (see Charles Rhodes/Timmy Bowers, etc.) Everyone deals with youth.

 

[KennyPowers]

I knew what you were saying Azzurri!!!!

 

[jcdawgman18]

this might be the first season I can remember in a long time that I didn't hear him qualifying his expectations on the year with the statement that "we're young."

Coach speak. Or poor mouthing. Almost every coach in the country does this. They don't believe anything they're saying, but they say it so that they don't give anyone else bulletin board material.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

Since you have actually put together an argument there, I don't totally disagree with you.

I also agree that Mullen's attitude is a breath of fresh air

This is really all I was saying in my 1st post. I may have gone a little overboard.

I will admit that I don't have blind love for Stansbury like some do though. I have a long love/hate relationship with him.

 

[fishwater99]

We are young, we lost players to the NBA. I can hear it now, "Sidney didn't get cleared".

This year it is Sweet 16 or Bust for his ***...

 

[8dog]

or Cox and Boyd.

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

It may be coach speak in this instance, but it has nothing to do with the opponents. It has everything to do with the fans' expectations.

The coach doesn't want you to think, "Hey! we might be really good in 2008-09. We have a stud PG coming in (Bost), studs (based on recruiting) in Osby, Ravern and Kodi, a stud center in Varnado, good role players in Stewart, Turner, etc...we might actually threaten the Sweet 16 this year!" The coach is just chilling expectations, just in case he can't squeeze an NCAA tourney run out of those guys. He would rather you think that he did good with what he had, just in case he fails.

In my opinion, that does not inspire confidence, and when every team in america (apart from a select few) is dealing with the same problem, just shut your mouth and play ball.

Note: I am not passing judgment on the 2008-09 season, but this is just an example.

 

[Seinfeld]

who has a reason to ***** about taking over a pile of ****, it is Mullen. The fact that he hasn't once blamed the previous coaching staff is incredible. Croom would have been coming up with excuse #1,854 by now.

 

[Dog in the Know]

Croom did it the right way, and he'll tell you too.....

 

[Stormrider81]

I've listened to Stansbury on the radio after losing a game we had no business losing not making a single excuse but rather taking all the blame. This came at a time when Polk was inventing new excuses weekly and Croom was being Croom. I don't mind legitimate criticism of Stansbury, but there are a few of you here on this board that our downright ridiculous.</p>

 

[jbulldog]

you made your point about coaches who make excuses but you left one out....John Cohen. Everytime we turned around last year we heard him talking about not having the players to compete with. Mullen has never done that, and I love it.</p>

 

[AzzurriDawg4]

routine last year. Apparently the guy has a completely different persona this year. I look forward to seeing how it plays out.

 

[MississippiHeavyMetalDawg]

show his a$$ the door.
[/idiot speak]

 

[bullysleftnut]

this might be the first season I can remember in a long time that I didn't hear him qualifying his expectations on the year with the statement that "we're young."

That may be true, but so is every other decent basketball team in the country. As to Stans and college basketball in general, I don't think youth can ever be an excuse. Not when you have 18 year olds that can earn significant playing time in the NBA. If you have seniors in college basketball, you are either terrible, have gotten incredibly lucky (see us keeping Varnado) or you are good because you have some players that are kick *** college players but not good enough to be pros (see Charles Rhodes/Timmy Bowers, etc.) Everyone deals with youth.

I don't ever remember Stans making excuses. Ever. Even when he missed out on Bender I remember him saying "Yeah we'd love to have him but we don't, and we need to get better."

A relevant Q&A between Kyle and Stans:

<font face="georgia,palatino" size="2">Q: But you're a basketball guy. You can look at your roster and say 'I've got a lot of good coming back.' You can raise your own internal expectations some, can't you?

A: I will say this: If you're asking me do I like my starting point more than last year? Yes, I do. But I wasn't going to let my starting point last year be an excuse for not winning a championship or competing for a championship. I think that's what's happened so many times - players and coaches play to expectations. High or low. Well, we're not going to be too high, we're not going to be too low. We're going to approach them the same way every year, because our expectations, I expect the same from them. Are some years easier than others based on experience and the youth of your team? Absolutely. But again, not always. The outcome's not always consistent with experience and youth. Like I said, we had two players returning last year. Only Jarvis (Varnado) and Barry (Stewart). No expectations, really. New team. Our ninth game in SEC play, we were playing for first place in the SEC. Again, found a way to win a championship. So, I don't get into that much. That's for you media guys to write about, and that's why you can write about it, and that's fine, Kyle, but like I say, I don't get in to it, don't put much confidence in it.

The ] Stans Interview[/url]
</font>

 

[jbulldog]

nm